Turning Japanese

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"Turning Japanese"
Single by The Vapors
from the album New Clear Days
Released	1980
Format	7" square record, 45RPM, CD
Genre	New Wave
Label	United Artists
Producer	Vic Coppersmith-Heaven
The Vapors singles chronology
"News at Ten" (1980) "Turning Japanese" (1980) "Jimmie Jones" (1981)

"Turning Japanese" is the most popular song released by the English band The Vapors from their album New Clear Days, and the song for which they are best known. The song's lyrics mainly consist of the singer talking about pictures of his love.

Contents 1 Overview 1.1 Covers 2 Chart performance 3 References

[edit] Overview

In the U.S., the song was believed to euphemistically refer to the face a male makes during the act of masturbation.^[1] In a VH1 True Spin special the band affirmed this. Fenton explained: "Turning Japanese is all the clichés about angst and youth and turning into something you didn't expect to."^[2]

On "Adults Only 20 to 1: Saucy Songs" screened on the Nine Network Australia 2nd April 2009 the rumour that this song was about "masturbation" was highly exaggerated. The truth is that David Fenton would alternately confirm and deny the rumor.

The band knew they had a hit with "Turning Japanese", so much so that they waited until their second single before releasing it, fearing that if they released it as their first they would become one-hit wonders, but they never matched its success.^[3]

The song enjoyed some sales in the Japanese charts on the back of its huge success in Australia, where it spent two weeks at Number One in June 1980.^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Covers

• "Turning Japanese" was covered by No Use for a Name and released in 1997 on Before You Were Punk, a collection of 1980s new wave tracks covered by modern day punk rock bands.
• A ska punk version of the song was done by the band Skankin' Pickle, on their 1994 release Sing Along With Skankin' Pickle.
• This song was covered by the glam rock band Peppermint Creeps.
• Liz Phair covered the song on Juvenilia in 1995.
• The song was featured in an advertisement for KFC, in which a man at a karaoke bar gets up and drunkenly sings the chorus.
• A cover of the song is a playable track in the PlayStation 2 music game Guitar Hero Encore: Rocks the 80s.
• In "Endless, Nameless" the hidden track of Nirvana's 1991 album, Nevermind, Kurt Cobain begins to sing, "I think I'm turning Japanese; I think I'm turning Japanese; I really think so..."
• Jawbreaker plays it as part of their song "With or Without U2", a medley of "With or Without You" by U2, "Skulls" by The Misfits, and "Turning Japanese".
• The now-defunct Irish band The Revs did a cover in 2002.
• Coldplay covered the song at Sydney's Hordern Pavilion in 2003.
• In an episode of Bill Nye: The Science Guy the song was parodied with lyrics regarding static electricity replacing the original lyrics.
• The song was featured in a segment of Jackass: The Movie titled "Night Pandas", where the team engages in various shenanigans on the streets of Tokyo while wearing panda costumes.
• The soft drink Dr. Pepper did a parody of the song in one of their ads called "Turning 23", referring to its 23 flavors.
• Rick Moranis performed the song in a jazz style as Tom Monroe on the Canadian sketch comedy series SCTV.
• Incubus has done a cover at live shows, and also a studio version has been recorded that is commonly found in P2P programs.
• The Greg Kihn Band sang "Turning Japanese" featured in one of the Modern Rock cd's.
• Kirsten Dunst sang "Turning Japanese" in a McG/Takashi Murakami version featured at 'Pop Life' at a Tate Modern 2009 exhibit in London, UK.

[edit] Chart performance

Chart (1980)	Peak position
Australian ARIA Charts	1
Canadian Singles Chart	7
New Zealand RIANZ Singles Chart	9
UK Singles Chart	3
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	36
U.S. Billboard Hot Dance Club Songs	34

[edit] References

Preceded by "Tired of Toein' the Line" by Rocky Burnette

Australian Kent Music Report number-one single June 23, 1980 - June 30, 1980

Succeeded by "Can't Stop the Music" by Village People